Why Write? I’ll Give You 3 Good Reasons

Since this is the first post here at Living Through Writing, I thought it best to try my hand at inspiring you to create with words. I’ve been asked before by various people why I write, and my common response was always that, “I just like to”. Well, lemme tell you, it goes deeper than that–much deeper. If you’re anything like me, sometimes I need that extra boost to get motivated to lay the ink down, so to speak, and because of my occasional dilemma, I’ve decided to go ahead and center this post on three truly great reasons to get writing.

“Writing is my Hobby” Photo courtesy of Charles J. Danoff

It’s a creative outlet, giving you the room to do just about anything.

Okay, this goes for any writing, whether you’re doing it for a living, doing it for fun, or even a nasty research paper. I started out with poetry and rock lyrics (yeah, my No Doubt-phase-turned-metal), but the element between article writing and creative writing is the same. It’s a great way to get down your thoughts, convey ideas, and even make some money if you work real hard with it.

The next time you feel restless, overjoyed, angry, frustrated, whatever, try jotting all this down while including some thoughts that are going through your mind when you’re feeling that way. It doesn’t even have to be in complete sentences, and you don’t even need to worry about spelling…unless you’re OCD that way…*ahemmm…another one of my writing traits.

The easiest way to get started is to purchase a $.50 composition book and just start writing. Write anything. Poetry, short blurbs, overly-descriptive grocery lists, epic fiction, it doesn’t really matter. It’s just a starting point to get your thoughts untangled and laid into written language. You can continue to develop your writing as you continuously write.

You can kill your ex if you want to.

The best thing I can think of when writing fiction? I can kill whoever I want. I can seriously injure and maim my characters. The point? You’re writing and letting out all that angst as described above. Your imagination is the key to the lock of your story. Turn it and you open the door to all the possible worlds, people, and events of your own creation. Use your observations for stories of your own telling. Turn an ugly argument into a scene in a short fiction piece.

“2012-259 A Writing Six-Word Story” Photo courtesy of Denise Krebs

You can even use your ex or that snotty salesperson as an exact model for a character. You can later kill them off. Then they can reanimate, and you can kill them again. You get the idea.

It’s a proven method of therapy.

By now you’ve probably gathered that all these benefits to writing are interrelated. You’d be 100% correct. When you exercise your creativity, and when you use real people as models for characters, whatever feelings and emotions that you pour into your writing are relieved. If you keep a journal, make a goal to write in it at least a few times a week.

When writing in your journal about a particular experience, write down the emotions you feel. Take a step back, and then revisit what you wrote later on in the day, or even a day later. You’ll be surprised just how effective a therapy method this is.

I’ll occasionally fill up this blog space with more awesome reasons to write, and you can be sure that as I write them, I’ll be keeping them in mind for my own personal development and motivation-kicker. Have fun with it, never take it too seriously, and most of all…….